Among the several large-scale battles during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Battle of Songhu was the most tragic and thrilling. From August 13 to November 1937, Shanghai at that time brought together one-third of the squadron, Chiang Kai-shek put his own descendants into it, after more than three months of bloody fighting, the number of squadrons was as high as 30. The Battle of Songhu also became the largest and most tragic battle in the entire Sino-Japanese War. So why did the Battle of Songhu happen?What did we pay in this battle?Today, we will use some different perspectives to reveal to you the tragic Battle of Songhu.
At the beginning of 1932, Japan had already invaded Shanghai. However, at that time, Chiang Kai-shek adopted the policy of "first securing the interior before attacking the outside world" and signed the "Songhu Armistice Agreement" with Japan. After the agreement was signed, China had only two regiments, which were stationed on the outskirts of Shanghai. And nominally, it cannot be called the army, only the police corps and the security forces. These two regiments not only have very limited strength, but they are also quite "light" in terms of equipment. There is no heavy **, not even a mortar like this, what its combat effectiveness is, it is self-evident. And what about Japan?A Marine Corps Headquarters was also set up in Shanghai, where more than 3,000 Japanese Marines were stationed. The Japanese not only have troops stationed here, but also warships and some gunboats, and also patrol along the Yangtze River and Huangpu River all year round.
After five years, Japan finally lost control of its ambitions. In 1937, Japan created the July Seven Incident, and then invaded Pingjin, Shanghai, and pointed directly at Nanjing. On August 9, the Japanese Marines began to provoke China and were routed by the security forces. Japan took advantage of this conflict to continuously increase its troops in Shanghai. On August 13, the Japanese marines, relying on the preset positions in the Hongkou District, opened fire on the Chinese defenders of the Songhu Railway, and attacked along the Baoshan Road under the cover of tanks, but were repulsed by the Chinese defenders.
With such an act of Japan, the squadron has no way to retreat. Thus, the vigorous Battle of Songhu began.
On August 14, China** issued the "Declaration of Self-Defense and War of Resistance", and the war began. The National Military Commission immediately reorganized the Beijing-Shanghai garrison into the Ninth Group Army, and incorporated the two regiments that were once stationed in Shanghai into it, with nine divisions and one brigade under its jurisdiction, as well as the Shanghai Police Corps and the Jiangsu Security Regiment.
At the same time, Japan also organized the 3rd, 9th, and 11th Divisions into the Shanghai Dispatch Army, with Admiral Matsui Ishine as the commander. On August 17, the squadron and the Japanese army exchanged fire at Hongkou and Yangshupu. Because the Japanese army had already built strong fortifications, it was very difficult for the squadron to attack. Thus, the vigorous Battle of Songhu began.
On August 22, the 3rd and 11th Divisions and an aircraft carrier battle group dispatched by Matsui Ishine arrived in Shanghai, and on the 23rd, under the cover of battleship gunfire, they quickly landed and launched a fierce attack on Baoshan, Wusong, Luodian and other places. To this end, the 9th Army and the 15th Army began to launch a counterattack. Although Luodian is small in size, it is an important transportation hub, and once it is lost, the situation on the battlefield will inevitably change. So the two sides launched a fierce tug-of-war in Luodian. With the arrival of the Japanese aid troops, its artillery fire became more intense, and the squadron fought to the death, and when the bullets were finished, they rushed out of the trenches to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, and when they encountered tanks, they rushed over with grenades tied to their bodies, and they were killed and wounded on both sides.
On the 29th, although Huang Wei led the 67th Division to recapture Luodian, under the strong fire attack of the Japanese army, it was forced to withdraw again before it could gain a firm foothold in the place, and finally failed to prevent the Japanese army from capturing Luodian. In this battle, Luo Zhuoying's 18th Army, Hu Zongnan's First Army, and Yu Jishi's 74th Army were all put into the battlefield, and the ** Army even fought at the cost of consuming one division a day. The so-called "one inch of mountains and rivers and one inch of blood", if Verdun in World War I was a "meat grinder", then Luodian in the Battle of Songhu was a "flesh and blood mill" with a mountain of corpses.
It was indeed not very realistic for China at that time to develop its own military industry in a short period of time. To this end, the people have specially formulated a plan for strengthening armaments and warfare. It is to arm 30 Chinese divisions with German training methods and equipment. At that time, the people believed that as long as China could train 30 German armorers, it would definitely be able to fight Japan without falling behind. However, before this plan could be realized, a full-scale war broke out between China and Japan. At this point, Germany's military aid was interrupted, and the national army reorganization plan came to an abrupt halt.
And equipped with German troops, only the ** Army Military Academy Teaching Corps (30,000 people), the 87th, 88th, and 36th divisions (about 1. per division40,000 people). The officers and men of the German armament division were basically equipped with a "box gun" and a "formal" rifle. At the same time, each platoon was armed with five Czech light machine guns, and at the division and regimental level, it was equipped with Krupp mountain guns, anti-aircraft guns, anti-aircraft guns, and radio communication systems. At the time of the Songhu war, although Japan knew that our army had German troops. However, as soon as the German mechanic division appeared on the field, the Japanese army was still taken aback. In particular, the firepower of the German armouring division, as well as the 150 mm heavy guns and light tanks it possessed, all of which once suppressed the Japanese army without moving forward. But after all, there are not many equipment, and many of them rely on imports, and key heavy ammunition and parts rely on imports, and their combat effectiveness is greatly restricted.
However, in the Battle of Songhu, several German armourers were basically consumed very badly, and the few remaining German armourers were all martyred in the defense of Nanjing. Since then, there has been no more German mechanics in the squadron.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, if China was still capable of fighting in land warfare, Japan's strength far surpassed ours in terms of air force. This strength refers not only to the performance of the aircraft, but also to the quality of the pilots and the number of aircraft.
At that time, Japan had more than 2,000 aircraft in Japan, and about 800 of them were deployed in the Chinese battlefield. During the Battle of Songhu, the Japanese army deployed more than 200 fighter planes to bomb our army's main positions and densely populated areas.
On August 14, a group of Chinese planes flew over the skies of Shanghai, and their mission this time was to bomb Japanese military targets in Shanghai. In this air combat mission, the officers and men of our air force braved danger and dispatched more than 100 sorties to drop nearly 100 tons of bombs on the Japanese first team parked on the Yangtze River, destroying six Japanese bombers. It can be said that the August 14 air battle boosted the morale of our army and dealt a severe blow to the arrogance of the Japanese army, which was supposed to annihilate China in three months.
But as the fighting heated up, the Japanese also increased their strength. Many Chinese Air Force pilots, when the ammunition was exhausted, still resolutely piloted the plane and crashed into the ** parked on the river. In the three-month Battle of Songhu, only 80 of the 300 planes originally owned by the Chinese Air Force remained. The number of pilots is even more terrifying. Like the four heavenly kings of the Chinese Air Force, Gao Zhihang, Liu Cuigang, Le Yiqin, and Liang Tiancheng, all died in the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Nanjing. The only 80 remaining planes were also martyred in the subsequent Battle of Nanjing. This shows the fierceness of this battle.
Just when the Battle of Shanghai was in full swing, Ruan Shangyu, the director of the Shanghai Arsenal, found the worker Hu Jiwen to discuss how to contribute to the Battle of Songhu, and the two decided to give full play to their own specialties and make explosives to blow up the "Izumo Ship", the flagship of the Japanese Navy's Third Sentai with a displacement of nearly 9,800 tons, and deal a fatal blow to the Japanese army.
Hu agreed, and immediately went into action. After research, they decided that the divers would quietly place the mine next to the ship and detonate it. In order to solve the preparation of large mines, Hu Jiwen and Ruan Shangyu found a mine shell in the old warehouse of the Shanghai Arsenal together, reconfigured and assembled it, and made it a secret that could be pushed underwater.
So in one night, the brave divers slowly pushed the mine to the vicinity of the "Izumo", and in the end, because it was the first operation, there were also errors in calculation, so that the mine was still far away from the enemy ship, and the "Izumo" could not be blown up, but this behavior greatly encouraged the Shanghai War of Resistance.
Those who know China's modern history know that Chiang Kai-shek, although nominally, is the supreme leader of China and controls the country's army. But this is only in name, and many parts of China are still ruled by warlords. For example, the Gui army of Bai Chongxi in Guangxi, the Yunnan army of Yunlong, the Sichuan army of Liu Xiang in Sichuan and the Guizhou army of Guizhou.
After the Battle of Songhu began, the warlords in these places almost all stopped thinking about their belongings overnight, and all of them went out to actively participate in the Battle of Songhu. These local warlords also performed prominently on the battlefield. For example, Bai Chongxi of the Gui Department braved the Japanese artillery fire and aircraft bombing many times to the front line to check the battle situation and the movements of the Japanese army. Assist Chiang Kai-shek in formulating military plans. At the same time, Bai Chongxi also sent his elite, the "Mage Master", to the Songhu battlefield, which can be said to have taken out all his old bottoms. On October 21, after receiving Chiang Kai-shek's order, the six divisions of the Gui Army began to rush to the Songhu battlefield. However, because of the weather at that time, the direction of its march deviated, and the eye-catching yellow uniform was attacked by the Japanese army, and in just 3 days, the strength of the 6 divisions of the Gui Army was almost exhausted. When Bai Chongxi learned the news, he was even more heartbroken.
Among them, the Yunnan army and the Guizhou army, which originally had contradictions with each other, also abandoned their previous suspicions and supported each other on the battlefield of resistance against Japan. Li Jue, who has always had contradictions with the ** army, saw Hu Zongnan, the commander of the first army of the ** army, who was surrounded by the Japanese army, he immediately led the army to relieve the siege and rescued the ** army from the encirclement. Piece by piece, pile by case, all reflect the greatness of our nation, no matter what it is in ordinary times, but as long as it is related to the country and the nation, we can meet each other with a smile and a grudge. And Chiang Kai-shek, who has always cracked down on dissidents and preserved his strength, also took out all the 400,000 ** troops of his descendants, which greatly encouraged the enthusiasm of the whole country for the War of Resistance.
Although Chiang Kai-shek continued to deploy troops, with the Japanese army pressing forward step by step, the squadron has always been in a passive position, but Shanghai is still in our hands. This forced the Japanese army to change its battle plan, began to aim at Central and East China, and even established the Central China Front, and increased the strength of the Songhu front to 270,000. In the face of the large-scale support of the Japanese army, Chiang Kai-shek again had the idea of intervening in the Japanese aggression through the foreign powers, and began to announce the order to retreat, and the troops held their original positions. As soon as the order came out, the morale of the squadron was greatly affected, and chaos began to appear in the army.
At dawn on November 5, the Japanese army launched an attack from the northern part of Hangzhou Bay, where only a few armed forces were stationed, and landed at Jinshanwei, cutting off the rear road of the squadron. On the evening of 8 November, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the evacuation of all troops from Shanghai, but the order was issued so quickly that he did not even arrange the specific steps to retreat, causing all the troops to withdraw to the rear together. At this time, the Japanese army landed in Taicang and cut off the Beijing-Shanghai railway, and the successive blows finally turned this retreat into a rout.
On the 11th, the mayor of Shanghai announced the fall of Shanghai.
This three-month-long battle completely shattered Japan's plan of "destroying China in three months" and made an important contribution to China's long-term war of resistance in the future. At the cost of 300,000 yuan, we proved to the world with our blood and lives China's determination and belief in resisting Japan.